Information request submitted by Lisa Arrasmith. Additional information submitted by Mary Sue Arrasmith Brown.
The drummer is my paternal grandfather, Hermon Dewey Arrasmith [nicknamed Dutch], of Ames, Iowa. Grandpa died when my father was 10 years old. Grandpa was a teenager when he joined the army and chased Pancho Villa along the Mexican border. He fought in France during WWI and did electrical work for the defense industry during WWII. He was a drummer from the time he was a little boy. My father remembers that grandfather played at a dancehall on North Dayton Avenue near the intersection of County Road E29. The dancehall doesn't exist anymore. Dad also remembers that his father was in a band that played on Saturday nights at the American Legion and at country schools. These shows had to have been in the late 1930s and early 1940s because my father was born in 1935 and grandfather died in 1945.
Grandpa is the drummer in this photo of "Westy's Toadstools." [The piano player in this photo is Emmet Stull.] My father estimates that the photo was taken during the 1920s, possibly before his parents met. We don't know anything about this band, where and when it played or where this photo was taken. My father and aunt and the rest of the family appreciate any information you can provide about my grandfather, his life and his musical career. Thank you, Lisa Arrasmith.
Hermon Dewey Arrasmith (1898-1945) married to Lyle Beatrice Arrasmith (nee Reade), father of Daniel Arrasmith (1935- ), Ames High School Class of 1954, and Sharon Petersma (nee Arrasmith) (1930- ), also a graduate of Ames High School.